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Message: [QUOTE="zachvac, post: 788589, member: 26306"] So we see it all the time, this caught my attention most watching ChuckTs' analysis of icemonkey's session today. He talked a lot about "taking the initiative" in the hand and we see it all the time from various poker authorities about taking the lead in a hand, Harrington even uses that as one of the criteria to change what you should do in a heads-up ring game hand. Now of course against average and below-average players they will play in a very predictable manner because they think that's how it's supposed to be. The preflop raise should/will raise. This leads to a lot of monsters checking when OOP to the preflop raiser and a lot of people cbetting practically any flop. My question however, is why this matters against good opponents. Now the one time it would matter is say there's a preflop raise from EP. You can now expect that player to have a good hand. But when you watch shows such as HSP, you'll realize that at that skill level mixing it up is so imperative that even an UTG raise may not mean extreme strength. So why is who raised preflop important? Why does it matter whether the CO raises and button calls or the button raises, everyone folds around to the CO and then he calls? If we assume a wide range of hands from both players in both scenarios, why does it matter who raised preflop? What value does "taking the initiative" or being "the preflop aggressor" have? If we erase all our artificial expectations and approach this from an objective and analytical stance, I don't see any reason that the person who raised would matter. Am I missing something? They still act in the same order, the same amount of money's in the pot preflop, etc. Everything is the same in the future. So as I mentioned, other than slight changes in hand ranges, what is the big deal about being the preflop aggressor? I'll exploit the actions people use with that assumption where I play now. I've started check-raising a ton with ATC (that I called preflop with) when an aggressive player with a high cbet % throws out a cbet after they raised preflop. I've started checking behind flops for pot control because I know that a lot of even sets would check in that position. But in a tough game where there are no artificial ideas of how someone SHOULD play or act, what's the difference? [/QUOTE]

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